


the creation of heaven and earth

by transatem



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Series, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gay, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 04:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14394798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transatem/pseuds/transatem
Summary: “devotion,” he traces on the floor. “affection. love. adoration. infatuation. to cherish. to have ‘feelings for.’”





	the creation of heaven and earth

Yuuma realizes, one day, that he wouldn’t know what to do without him.

Not that he’s dumb, or that he can’t duel without him or something, he just...you know. When you’re around someone every day for that long, it’s hard to imagine life without them. Isn’t that it? Plus, Astral’s his best friend. He’s not afraid of admitting that. It’s normal to feel that way about your friends.

Yuuma realizes, the next day, that he can’t stop looking at him.

It’s because he looks so strange, of course. All blue, markings all over him, the glow that illuminates him...and only he can see him, isn’t that strange? But it’s nice, too, somehow, there’s something about it--something like a secret, something...something like it’s all for him. That’s a really weird thought to have about your friend, but Astral’s a weird friend to have.

He’ll never admit that he thinks Astral’s really pretty, and has since the moment he first saw him, and he’ll never admit that he likes it when Astral smiles, and he’ll never admit that when he figured out he could touch Astral after forming ZeXal his first thought was towards the curve of his lips--but that last one was a total fluke, obviously.

Realizations drop, drop, drop into the bucket. _Seeing him is always exciting. This is what happiness is for me. I hope he feels that way about me too. What if I kissed him, that’s funny, I want to, I really want to_ \--an old story says the world was formed in seven days, and on midnight of the seventh day Yuuma’s eyes fly open, and he realizes he’s in love with Astral.

There’s not even any use being embarrassed about it, there’s not even any use trying to deny it, it’s there, it’s undeniable. He’s in love with the alien that lives in his Emperor’s Key, and he can’t...bring himself to be upset about it. He loves Astral. He really, really does. So that’s what that’s like. That feeling of always wanting to be around someone, that itching, dreamy feeling of affection--and he’s not the longing type, but he’s so sore with it he could _die._ And he’s been feeling like this for a while, too. ...He really is a little stupid.

And of course Astral’s there, cause he’s always there, sitting in front of the TV with his mouth open just slightly as he watches some ESPer Robin reruns or something, and Yuuma is in _trouble._

The next day, on the way home from school, a butterfly lands lightly on a flower, and Yuuma catches Astral cupping it with his hands.

“It’s so beautiful,” he says, his head tilted and his eyes open wide with wonder. “Why does it need to be?”

“Uh, I don’t know, camoflafl...cama...camafla…?” 

“It reminds me of you.”

Yuuma stops in the middle of his sentence, and his mouth is suddenly very dry. 

“So wonderful,” Astral finally clarifies, his gaze only slightly wavering from the butterfly, “For no reason at all.”

“I--” Yuuma clamps his mouth shut, to keep himself from stuttering everywhere. Or maybe to keep himself from spilling out, to keep his private and _very embarrassing_ feelings from spilling out on the pavement, right there for Astral to see, for him to look at--

(and yuuma can just imagine it, “interesting.” he’d say, looking at liquid love on the sidewalk. “what kind of effect does that have?” he’d ask, in that stupidly sweet way he still does sometimes. 

“i’d do anything for you,” yuuma would say back, and the road branches. “me too,” astral could say, and they mix red and blue to make purple, “...isn’t that strange of you.” astral could say, and all that love rots in the sun.)

There are some fears the kattobingu mantra doesn’t reach, and against those Yuuma feels very small again, climbing a mountain too much bigger than he is. But at the peak is Astral, warm and bright and smiling, and somewhere he feels like climbing that mountain is the most important thing he could ever do, the most important thing is that Astral knows he loves him--

Instead, Yuuma turns on his heel, says “I’ve gotta get home!” and walks away as fast as he possibly can.

Over the next few weeks, Yuuma develops a persistent dizziness, arrhythmia, chest pain, and chronic distraction, and Akari teases him for what feels like several years over googling if you can die from a crush.

 

Astral can’t dream, because he can’t sleep, but if he did, he thinks he’d dream of drowning.

He doesn’t have the words to describe it, so instead he imagines himself at the bottom of an ocean. Water fills up his mouth, and he stares at the reflection of sunlight up above him with bleak wonder. He has no lungs, no insides in general that he knows of, so through his mouth the sweet water ebbs and flows, like he is simply a part of the ocean floor and always has been, thousands of years spent in its warm embrace.

And there is something in this ocean of sweet water he wants, he wants more than anything, and the wanting aches within him like it’s going to tear out. The water rushes past and roars in his ears, the tide is so fast sometimes, it’s so powerful, it’s battering him around and there’s nothing he can do, the tempest is a part of him and he’s a part of it, water is going to burst out of his fingertips, it’s so overwhelming and so fascinating--in the most confusing part of his imagining, Yuuma takes his hand, and the tide stops. Once, in what feels like a long time ago, Yuuma told Astral he was his friend, and the light that burst from him then may well have been the same as that too-sweet water.

Astral has no words, besides maybe one, to describe it, so instead he traces the outline of a warm smile on the attic floor at night. 

(“love,” he weighs on his tongue, and it fits, he realizes with a start. fascinating. love, loves, loving, loved, in love. in love. how interesting. this otherwordly feeling of devotion--yes, that’s a good word, too--is love.

“devotion,” he traces on the floor. “affection. love. adoration. infatuation. to cherish. to have ‘feelings for.’”)

“Really...how long are you just gonna keep staring out the window?”

Yuuma’s voice is tinted with affection and sleep, and Astral’s face is pressed against the window screen, watching snow fall outside. Beyond his fascination, he feels water rise and fall in his chest.

“It’s amazing, Yuuma.”

“You are too, but you don’t see me watching you like a hawk at eight in the morning...” And out of the corner of his eye, Astral sees Yuuma freeze, in the middle of wiping his eye with the other eye shot wide open. The sweet water rises up to Astral’s throat, rushes to his cheeks.

Yuuma should get a prize for tearing Astral’s stare away from the window. “...Thank you.” Astral struggles around the words. How strange. He’s never felt this sensation before. 

“Are you blushing?” Yuuma says, in a hushed, amazed voice, and Astral’s startled to realize that Yuuma looks very much like he has just seen snow for the first time, mouth parted just slightly, face slightly pink, and Astral has to look away.

“I, um, I suppose?” The ocean is roaring in his ears, waterfalls in his chest, rivers in his mind, creeks in his veins. The waves crashing against him tell him that he should hold Yuuma closer and tell him all the words he’s figured out, devotion yearning tenderness affection until both he and Yuuma are drowning, drowning together in the cherry water--

“Astral.” Yuuma is looking out the window, now, his eyes wide, his voice weak, his arms trembling as they hold him up.

“Yes?”

“I don’t wanna...I mean. I want to be friends with you forever, Astral. I don’t want to make a mistake.” His face is beet red, and he sounds uncharacteristically serious.

Astral blinks, and the truth spills out of him, and he imagines a flood in the attic. “When it’s you, I like even your mistakes.”

Yuuma turns back to him, and the surprised, flustered look he wears looks very nice on him. Astral realizes, with a feeling like the water has been punched out of him, that in this look Yuuma is wearing a parallel of Astral’s own feelings to match.

“O-Okay.”

He hadn’t realized they’d been getting closer to each other, until they’re close enough for Astral to reach out and hug him.

Astral does. He’s come this far, after all, and Yuuma’s arms reach around him and he buries his face into Astral’s shoulder, and it’s quiet for a while.

Raising his head over Astral's shoulder, Yuuma says, "I want to be with you forever," like he's heard someone said a long time ago, "I love you. I'd do all sorts of stupid stuff for you. I'd even die for you. Anything's worth it for you, that's how I feel. Numbers, aliens, whatever. I'd do anything for you. I love you. I'd even go around telling people you're my boyfriend even though no one else can see you but me, or...or get married or something else really mushy and stupid when we're older, and I'd say really embarrassing vows or something--"

Yuuma's eyes are squeezed shut, and he sounds like he won't let himself stop talking no matter how much Astral's grip on him tightens, like he's confessing a lifetime of bad things he's done and if he stops for one minute he won't have the courage to go on.

"Yuuma. Yuuma."

And he falls deadly still, and Astral wishes he could hug Yuuma and have Yuuma see how brightly he's smiling at the same time, let Yuuma see how he's made him feel, but unfortunately that's not how things work.

"I love you too," and he wants to say more, but the heaviness in his words chokes him, makes his arms around Yuuma tighten enough to hurt, "I love you too."

"You could've told me that before I said a bunch of stupid stuff about getting married," Yuuma says, his voice hollow with shock and awe, and then he starts giggling. And then he's laughing, and Astral feels wetness on his shoulder and realizes with an extreme horror that he's also _crying_.

"Yuuma?! Are you alright? Yuuma!" Is mutual love a bad thing for humans? Has he missed a memo? He does that sometimes. Astral misses many memos. This just makes Yuuma laugh harder, much to Astral's confusion and increasing fear, and he pulls back to look him in the face.

"They're happy tears, you goof! God, I _love you!_ "

Ah. Seems things like this are probably going to happen a lot. He's not human, after all. He's okay with that. His understanding of these things may still have time to develop, but love isn't exclusively between humans. He files that away somewhere in his most important discoveries, somewhere near _feelings_ and _bonds_ , and right next to _Yuuma is my friend,_ and _Yuuma loves me._

The snow is beautiful, but there are many other beautiful things. They keep Astral from being too disappointed when it stops.


End file.
